Blue
by illuminatachime
Summary: One-shot insight on Matt's take on his world.


It was just another day.

_Same old shit,_ he guessed. What had changed? What _hadn't _changed?

He shoved his callused hands deep in the pockets of his blue jeans, dipping his head forward and raising his shoulders as if he were cold. He walked down the empty hallways of the school, going for the exit.

If there was one thing all of his friends were constantly telling each other, it was 'don't go alone.'

If it were Caroline walking down this hall instead of himself, one of Klaus's hybrids or siblings or even Klaus himself might be lurking around a corner, waiting to pounce.

If it were Bonnie walking down the halls instead of him, it might be Klaus or some dark magicky witch waiting to coerce her into helping them and letting her friends down.

If it were Jeremy sauntering past the blue lockers, he might have the ghost or whatever of Ric watching over him. He might have Damon along for the ride. Or Tyler; who knew.

If it were Damon or Stefan, not both, just one; it could be anyone they'd encountered in any of the past one-hundred-and-fifty years – and maybe even someone they didn't know.

If it were Elena, she'd be safe. She'd be with Stefan, or Damon, or both. Maybe with Bonnie and Caroline. Everyone was always going out of their way to protect Elena, but he didn't begrudge her that. She was a good enough person; she deserved to be saved.

But it wasn't Elena, or Stefan or Damon, or Bonnie; Jeremy or Caroline. It was just him. Just him.

Just Matt.

Plain, simple, _human_ Matt.

He didn't need any protection. No one would come after him.

And honestly? He cared. Either something happened (usually when he was near Elena), or nothing happened (always when he was alone). Sometimes it felt strange, like Elena and her two vampires were in the spotlight, center, with Caroline, Bonnie, Jeremy, and Alaric all floating around in a constant orbit to protect Elena.

_But me, I'm not even on the stage. I've fallen off.  
_

Matt remembered when he was a little boy – he wanted to be important; brave. Now, he never had the opportunity to show his courage. Everything that happened had already happened by the time he heard of it, and no one really called on him to defend the people he thought of as friends, because he was human. Non-supernatural. Breakable.

But not weak.

Never weak.

His heart was made of iron, from his mother and his sister and his father. From Elena and Caroline. From Tyler.

_Ah…Tyler._ The recently-werewolf was becoming more and more closed, hiding from the public eye and rarely visiting anyone. Matt didn't even know if Tyler was still in town.

He just knew that he'd lost his best friend.

He'd lost his girlfriend.

He'd lost his girlfriend _to_ his best friend.

That girlfriend – _ex-_girlfriend was a vampire. Tyler was a werewolf. Elena was a doppelganger or something; Matt wasn't too knowledgeable on that subject – all he knew was that there was some vampire named Katherine who looked like a carbon copy of Elena, even though she was much older than the Salvatore brothers.

Sometimes at night, Matt would wake from an almost-nightmare; the kind that never gave a sign of what was real and what wasn't real – not anymore, now that things that were supposed to be impossible were living in his very hometown.

And he hadn't known.

He hadn't even known.

Not when Elena had found out that Stefan was a vampire. Not when Vicki died after becoming a vampire. Not when Bonnie realized that her _psychic _powers were actually those of a _witch._ Not when Caroline was turned. Not when Tyler was turned.

Sometimes Matt would wake from those almost-nightmares, shuddering and gasping hoarsely for breath, which he never quite seemed to catch all the way.

And he'd feel the blood pounding in his head, in his ears, in his palms; in his heart. He'd see his veins moving under the direction of his heartbeat, pumping his crimson blood through his veins to do his body's one job: keep him alive.

Being alive was not what it was made out to be, he knew. There were two definitions to alive: one, that you were breathing, and two, that you were having fun and excitement and passion and anguish as healthily as you could.

In the dead of night, when he'd wake up, unable to get a good gulp of air, he felt like he wasn't alive at all.

He shifted the weight of his backpack on his shoulder, and it suddenly felt like the weight of the world. That burden was a confusing, frustrating one; one only he could know about, one only he could understand.

_I'm not in the spotlight. But I crave to be, if we're being honest, he said to himself. I want to be dangerous. I want to be in danger._

_I want to live._

He cared. He cared so much about everyone, but his heart and his mind were so hardened against the hurt, the rejection, the bitter pain that everyone caused him. His life wasn't supposed to be this way. Nobody's was. But yet…he wanted it.

Everything always looked blue – never vibrant blue; dusty, dusky, dark and tinted grey. _He_ was blue. He could feel it in his bones. He was blue from his marrow to the tips of his hair; from his toenails to his eyelashes…

He was blue.

Blue like the sky, in day and at night. His heart was made of the darkest blue; midnight blue, and his lungs were pure navy. His strong arms and hands were cerulean, and his eyes were baby blue.

_Matt,_ he thought. _Matt is blue._

And everyone else is flaming, burning, bloody red.

He got into his car and turned it on, telling himself that he didn't _hope_ to see Rebekah or Tyler or Caroline pop up from his backseat.

He was _there_ when he absolutely needed to be; when Jeremy and Elena needed a knight to watch over them as their protectors, the _gods_ that were vampires, waged wars and fought battles for the sake of Elena's mortal life.

But no one was in his backseat, and no one was calling for him to babysit the Gilberts.

Everything was blue.

So he turned left and right, right and left and left and left and right, and right and left. He found his way home for the millionth time, through the dark, dusty blue of the evening's seventh hour.

He jingled his keys and opened the door to an empty household, to an empty fridge; to his empty life.

It was just another day.


End file.
